


Compass, Polestar

by DoreyG



Category: The Godfather (1972 1974 1990)
Genre: Adoptive sibling incest, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Arguing, Crushes, First Kiss, First Time, Fix It, Infidelity, Injury Recovery, Jealousy, M/M, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Underage making out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27710152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: Sonny and Tom, through the years.
Relationships: Sonny Corleone/Tom Hagen
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Compass, Polestar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



He was fifteen the first time he realized that Tom had a crush on him.

They had been best friends since eleven years old, if best friends was a big enough term to describe all the things that Tom was to him. Tom had dragged him back from a speeding car at the last moment, and he had responded by cheerfully dragging him into the bosom of his family and keeping him there. They’d played ball games together, and then card games when they’d got a little older. They’d stolen endless bites from his mother’s baking, and endless sips from his father’s alcohol. They’d tortured his brothers together, and teased little Connie until she stamped her foot and went crying to their mother. In short, they’d been near everything that it was possible for two human beings to be to each other.

But lately Tom had been a little off, a little quiet in a way that he had no idea how to deal with. Fredo, or even Michael who he still firmly regarded as a little baby at eleven years old, would’ve probably known how to draw him out of his shell; but he knew full well that he had no such refined people skills, and so instead only grew more confused and thus more irritated as time went on and Tom’s silence grew deeper and deeper.

He hadn’t quite been at the end of his rope, a great deal more people tended to get a fist in the face when he was at the end of his rope, but he had definitely been getting there. Until one day, one glorious day, when they’d been walking back from another friend’s house a few blocks away from theirs. They’d been talking casually, Tom quiet in the way that he’d usually been the fast few months, and he’d been boiling with frustration right up until the point where they walked under a particularly bright streetlamp. And then he’d happened to see a sideways glance that Tom snuck in his direction, and had known all at once.

Which brought them up to this point, still walking along the middle of the street like his entire world hadn’t shifted around him all at once. He couldn’t have that, he wasn’t the type of guy - even at fifteen - to wait and see what would happen. He stopped, stared at the back of Tom’s head disbelievingly as his friend carried on.

Tom was a great deal smarter than him, and maybe even a bit better at reading his surroundings. He noticed that he wasn’t besides him after only a few seconds, and glanced back at him with a clear expression of confusion. “Sonny, you alright?”

“Yeah,” he answered softly, studying Tom in a way that he never had before; thinking of every stretching silence, every lingering look, every time Tom had bitten his lip and glanced away from him like he was trying to bite back a great big secret. He considered the idea that he should be horrified by the attention, and then immediately dismissed it. This was _Tom_ , after all, and he trusted nobody else in the world more. “I’m fine. Pretty great, actually.”

“You want to get going, then?” Tom asked, with a pointed arch of his eyebrows. He had watched him trying to perfect that look a thousand times in the mirror, practicing over and over again in an attempt to look wry and inscrutable. It didn’t work so well, on his fifteen year old face, but he had full faith in Tom’s ability to master it eventually and make them all proud. “Come on, if we’re late Fredo will have eaten all ma- all your mother’s cookies before we can get anywhere close.”

“If he does, he knows full well what I’m gonna do to him,” he said, briefly indignant, and decided that his observation had revealed all that it was going to. He caught up to Tom in a few quick steps, urged them back into a casual amble down the street. He allowed a few minutes to pass, before he decided to push the point. “Hey, Tommy?”

“Don’t _call_ me that, Sonny,” Tom said irritably, as addicted to ever as being seen as an adult - to being called Tom, or even Thomas if he was feeling particularly pompous - and sent him the kind of exasperated sideways glance that had him automatically smirking. “Yeah?”

Tom himself would’ve probably eased into it. Any other member of his family, even Connie who was probably as bad as him for letting her heart rule over her head, would’ve at least gone sideways at it instead of charging in like a bull in a china shop. But he had never been that capable of restraint, so he looked Tom in the eye without hesitation and asked: “When did you realize you liked men?”

Tom’s shock was so dramatic, so obvious, that he could’ve walked right into a role on stage without trying if their dad hadn’t already had him lined up for bigger and better things. His jaw dropped briefly open, before he closed it with an echoing snap. His eyes went wide, and his skin went pale, and a profound expression of panic spread rapidly across his face.

His instinct, as ever, was to poke at it until things went his way. But this was Tom, and, as much as he liked charging headlong into things, he didn’t want to send his best friend into a full on panic attack and possibly drive him away altogether. He remained silent, watching the guy. They stared at each other for a long few moments, the silence stretching out as Tom obviously groped for something to say.

“Oh,” Tom managed eventually, weaker than he’d ever heard him; even in these past few months, when he’d presumably been biting back hundreds of comments on just how hot he was. “You noticed.”

“The way you were looking at me? Yeah,” he said, trying to sound superior. An effort soon abandoned, when Tom only kept looking at him in a horribly sickly way. There was no point in trying to look superior around Tom, anyway, he was probably the only person in the world who had seen him actually being uncool. “Don’t think I’m some kind of mind reader, though. I only noticed just now, when we passed under that streetlight. That was why I stopped.”

“Well, you always have needed some time to think things through,” Tom said quietly, more thoughtful than panicked now. And then cut him a sideways glance, still slightly nervy but mischievous in a way that immediately laid all of his fears to rest. “I guess I should’ve expected it, really. You’re the only guy I know who still has to count on his fingers.”

“Hey!” He spluttered, relieved that Tom hadn’t immediately stuttered an apology but unwilling to let that slur on his good character stand. He lunged for his best friend immediately, aiming to get him into a headlock, and let out a surprised splutter when Tom only dodged him and threw an elbow into his ribs. What followed was a few intense minutes of scuffling, neither of them really trying to do damage but both of them aiming to win.

It was a fairly quick fight in the end, because if Tom had got the brains of the operation then he had most definitely got the brawn. Tom settled down on the curb afterwards, nursing an affectionately split lip, and cast him a far more relaxed one of those sideways glances. “Do you really mind?”

“Nah, not really,” he said honestly, and lowered himself down besides Tom. He was far less scuffed up, despite the aching of his ribs, but he still took the opportunity to ruffle up his hair from the neatness that his mother had forced him to comb it into before he’d left the house. “I’m used to people staring at me all the time, and I’m pretty sure most of them have crushes on me. I’ve even noticed the odd guy doing it before, and I don’t suppose it’s ever really been an issue. The only thing different about you is that I actually like you for more than your looks.”

Tom went a shade of bright, vivid red. An Irish blush his mother always affectionately called it, never seeming to notice how uncomfortable Tom got to be reminded of his origins in such a way. “You’re going to torture me for this, aren’t you?”

“Only a little,” he said affectionately, and slung an arm around Tom’s shoulder. It should’ve probably felt awkward, it most definitely didn’t. “Just as much as I always do. Really, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Fucking fantastic,” Tom said dryly, leaning briefly into his embrace. And then remained on the ground even when he released and climbed to his feet, staring up at him as he brushed himself off like he always did after all of their little rumbles “...Sonny?”

He looked down at Tom, cocked an eyebrow. He was pretty sure the movement made his entire face twitch, but that was alright with only Tom to witness. “Yeah?”

“You…” Tom hesitated for a long moment, yet again tentative in that way he was coming to hate with all of his fucking heart and much of his fucking soul, and glanced briefly down at his hands. Yet again he experienced the urge to poke, to get his best friend back already, but yet again he just about managed to restrain himself. “You don’t think that it’s a sin, do you?”

“Why would it be a…?” He started to ask, genuinely baffled, and then remembered an entire lifetime of sitting still on Sundays and being preached to by a whole succession of dusty old men. His mother had insisted on it, and his father had insisted even harder the one time he’d attempted to question why a crime family was so keen on the word of God, but he had always found it dull as shit. Evidently, Tom had been paying a little more attention while he’d been boredly kicking the back of the pew. “Oh, the church.”

He expected, almost hoped, that Tom would make a mocking comment about him only now remembering the organisation that was supposed to define their whole fucking lives. But no, instead Tom just continued to look up at him with those big baby blues and look heart-rendingly guilty.

“The way I see it, the church officially regards pretty much everything our family does as a sin,” he said slowly, consideringly. He had a lot of opinions on the hypocrisy of that, many of which he’d yelled at his father before being comprehensively shut down, but he tried to remain focused. Tom needed his full support and attention here, after all. “And that doesn’t mean that anything we do is necessarily bad, or is actually going to send any of us to hell. It’s just, y’know, stuff that they have to say so it all seems on the level. Y’know, like pops technically owns all of those restaurants that very few folk actually eat at.”

Tom’s face twisted into a complicated expression for a long moment, before settling into a rueful smile. Even at fifteen, he was a lot more interested in the actual business side of the family business than he was. “I, uh, think that some of the things your family does may be regarded as actually bad, Sonny.”

“Don’t let pops hear you say that,” he sniffed, knowing full well that Tom probably meant all the murder and violence and _fun_ side of the family business, and crouched down a little again to punch him fondly in the arm. “The way I see it, as long as you’re breaking the rules for good reasons - because you mean to do the right thing - it doesn’t really matter all that much what the actual letter of the law says. And as far as I see it, Tom, being attracted to me is a very good reason to break the rule that you shouldn’t be attracted to other guys.”

“You are such a…” Tom covered his face for a long moment, and then started to helplessly laugh. It was an utterly free sound, an utterly glorious one. Even after all this time, even after four years of having Tom as a member of the family, he was the only one who could make Tom quite that amused.

“You’re a good guy, Tom. The only one I’d have besides me in any situation, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.” He grinned at the infectious sound, and clapped Tom on the shoulder again. Allowed his hand to linger this time, not quite the caress he would’ve used on any of his girlfriends, but instead a lingering touch to test just how far this could go between them. As it turned out, as Tom slowly hiccupped his way back to silence beneath him, the results were promising. “Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, not even yourself.”

Tom, almost sober again but for the glitter in his eyes when he finally raised his head, nodded slowly. They remained on the ground for a moment longer, and then Tom scrambled up to his feet - with a hand up from him - and they started walking home again.

“...Sonny,” Tom said eventually when they’d gone a few blocks and were only a block or so from home, his tone no longer tentative but instead slow and considering.

“Tom?” He asked in return, making sure to draw the letters out and roll his eyes in Tom’s direction. He was impatient to get home now, impatient to quickly gulp down the dinner his mother would place in front of him and then drag Tom up to his room for hours of conversation that would probably end with them falling asleep in the same bed and being woken up by Connie poking them in the morning.

“If you actually don’t mind, me being attracted to your ugly mug and all that…” Tom continued, still slow but now with some of that own tentativeness seeping in. He was put in mind of his very first attempt to ask a girl out, before he had realized that what drew them the most was him knowing that he was the hottest shit on two legs. “Does that mean that you want to-?”

“Mm,” he said, knowing what Tom was getting at even before he formed the words, and tilted his head back to the sky. He was startled to realize that they’d been out long enough that it was getting dark, that if they didn’t pick up the pace he’d have not only his mother yelling at them but maybe a whole load of his father’s lieutenants out looking for them. “Not yet.”

“Oh,” Tom said, so quietly that he had to glance over at him. He had thought they knew each other’s minds, could practically read them in a way he’d managed with nobody else in his family, but judging by the old blush on Tom’s cheeks maybe they weren’t quite as in sync as all that.

“I said _yet_ , dummy,” he said affectionately, and slowed his strides so Tom’s blush had a chance of fading before his mother could see it. He didn’t actually want his best friend to get teased all that much, especially if the teasing wasn’t coming from his direction. “But give me a bit of time to get used to it, a bit of time to get my head around the fact that you don’t have tits, and we’ll see how it goes.”

Tom was shocked again, but this time in a far more pleasant way than before. He stared at him sidelong for a long few moments, struck speechless, and then very slowly started to smile. Judging by the beauty of his smile, radiant even in the dim dusk light, maybe it wouldn’t even take that long for his mind to wrap around it.

\--

He was sixteen the first time he kissed Tom.

Exactly sixteen, as it happened. It was the night of his birthday, and so the night of the overly elaborate party that his parents seemed to see as absolutely necessary for every single one of their children. That year it had been a particularly lavish affair, plenty of his friends and his father’s friends and people that neither of them knew that well but who seemed to be invited anyway. A whole orgy, though not a literal one much the pity, of chatter and laughter and wine snuck whenever mature backs were deliberately turned.

He had enjoyed it all incredibly, he had always been a big fan of being the centre of attention, but his favourite part of the day had come afterwards. When all of the youngsters and most of the adults had vanished, and he was left alone to find his own way again. When Tom, his brother and best friend and more than both of those things, had goaded him into leaving for his room and he had followed without a single thought.

“So you’ve finally caught up with me, then,” Tom said, when they were finally sequestered away together. He was sitting on his bed, leaning back against the headboard and looking down at him. Tom hadn’t had that much wine, basically only the odd half a glass that he’d forced on him throughout the night, but his eyes still glittered with a certain freedom that it was great to see.

He sat down on the floor besides the bed, leaned his back against the side and tilted his head until he could see Tom clearly. They’d been in these positions hundreds of times, on birthdays and christmases and anniversaries and a thousand meaningless little days in between. His ass had practically carved a groove into the carpet, by now. “You’re only three months older than me, you know.”

“Three and a half months,” Tom corrected, and he wondered how long the sniffiness about that point would last as they both got older and older. At eleven years old it had been a huge difference to both of them when they’d been in the mood, something for Tom to snootily hold over his head as proof of his superiority and something for him to try desperately to overcome, but as they headed steadily towards adulthood it became clearer and clearer what a small gap that actually was. His father was about three years older than his mother, after all, and he had witnessed marriages - sometimes even successful marriages - with far bigger gaps than that. “And it feels like a lot, when you’re waiting for your idiot best friend to catch up.”

“Hey!” He said, mock offended, and groped up to slap against Tom’s leg. But there was some sadness in there, barely hidden by the brashness of his tone. Lately, more and more as the days went past, he was starting to worry about Tom pulling away from him. His best friend was already so much smarter and more mature than him, for all that they only had a few months between them, and one day he wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled away entirely. They would still always have the family binding them, of course, but what if Tom went and got a better best friend inside the family? Got even closer to his father than he was already, or abandoned all taste and started hanging around Fredo, or even noticed how big Michael was getting - and how mature, and how intense even at just twelve years old - and started transferring his loyalty to him instead.

He was so focused on his own misery, a strange thing for him who always tried so hard to enjoy the lighter things in life, that he barely noticed that Tom was speaking again. “Did you enjoy today, then?”

“Bwuh?” He asked, hardly eloquent but he trusted that it conveyed everything, and only then realised that his hand was still resting against Tom’s thigh. He removed it, but with a slow stroke so Tom would have something to remember him by.

“The birthday party, you idiot,” Tom clarified, and squinted down at him thoughtfully. He was gratified, and not a little smug, when the moment he removed his fingers Tom put his own hand in the same place as if to lock in the warmth. “I know you’ve been looking forward to turning sixteen, even though I’ve been telling you for months that it doesn’t actually feel any different than fifteen. Was it everything you ever hoped for?”

“It was good, yeah,” he answered, and smirked up at Tom again. He looked good from this angle, although lately he was starting to think that his best friend looked good from any angle he chose. “You know how I feel about parties like that, though. I think they’re more about what my parents want than what I want. That huge party, all those people, all those eyes on me… And not a single hot chick invited to actually pique my interest. Honestly, I’d put in a complaint if I didn’t know dad would clip me around the ear for it.”

“Oh no, what a pity for you,” Tom said with his customary dryness, which was starting to become more and more practiced lately. He smirked, smug yet again, when he realized that his intended tease had hit home; Tom looked jealous only briefly, subtly enough that nobody who didn’t truly know him would’ve ever seen it, but still profoundly enough that he felt like doing a victory cheer. “You know what your mother thinks about that, though.”

“Yeah, yeah. We should all be virgins until we meet our perfect soulmate, get hitched within a two month period and pop out a gazillion kids. I’ve heard it from her enough times, you don’t need to repeat it,” he said dismissively, waving his hand. Although that brief flash of jealousy across Tom’s face had given him an idea, a little push to finally go after the temptation he’d been feeling ever since their conversation out on the street about half a year back. “I know she didn’t invite any girls my age so I couldn’t be tempted, just as she always does, but her plan didn’t work this time.”

“ _Sonny_ ,” Tom said, sounding so scandalised that he barely bit down on the urge to burst out laughing. Even after all this time, even after going through basically the entirety of puberty together, Tom was still capable of being shocked by him. “Don’t tell me that you’ve been flirting with other people’s wives again, you know what your dad said he’d do if he caught you just one more time…”

“No! Well, I mean a little…” He attempted to defend himself, couldn’t do it very well with Tom practically clutching his pearls above him. It was still so fun to rile him, to get him all het up and then reap the rewards. “But I wasn’t actually talking about them, not this time.”

“Right,” Tom said, and didn’t bother to hide his scepticism. His hilarious, and probably somewhat justified, opinion that he was little better than a horny dog humping fire hydrants for kicks.

He knew a way to shake that scepticism, though, a way to make Tom look a hell of a lot less superior and a hell of a lot more needy. He turned around on the floor, until he was facing the bed instead of leaning against it. He got up on his knees, until he was a little more on Tom’s level instead of helplessly below. And he reached his hand out, rested it on Tom’s lower thigh again and then slowly slid it up until he was just a few inches away from cupping his cock through his trousers. “I was talking about being tempted by a certain special guy, who sometimes I think is hotter than all the teenage babes I know combined.”

He wasn’t even lying, either, wasn’t doing this just to get Tom all riled up and a hell of a lot less judgemental. He’d spent all night around Tom, watching Tom, seeing Tom scuttle around - often seeming to try and be deliberately invisible - in that fancy suit that made him look like a man instead of the boy that he’d known for going on five years now. And he’d wanted; oh God, had he wanted.

It had been half a year since they’d sat on the curb, in the middle of an empty street, and Tom had admitted that he was attracted to him. And in that time, as promised, he had thought about it. And in that time, as he hadn’t quite promised but had implied, his thoughts had slowly changed. At first he had been mildly flattered, but not much more than that. And then he had felt pleased, almost proud, to have a guy like Tom looking at him in such a way. And then it had gone even further, desire seeming to bubble up inevitably inside him every time he looked at Tom doing his homework or listening dutifully to their father or even giving him a look of annoyance when he tried to drag them both into trouble. Wanting wasn’t exactly new for him, he’d been a fairly early bloomer in that regard even if he hadn’t really had any opportunity to put it into practice with such watchful parents, but this warm desire for somebody he actually knew and cared for… Yeah, that was both new and good.

Tom had frozen underneath his hand, as still as when they’d played tag as kids. The guy, becoming a man more and more by the day, seemed to take a long few moments to gather himself before he slowly reached down; but he didn’t push him away, only tangled their fingers on his thigh and looked down at him with a wonderfully torn expression. “Really?”

“I’ve had all the dinner I can eat,” he drawled, trying to appear flirtatious and for once knowing that it didn’t matter. Tom wouldn’t giggle at any of his failures, Tom would never disappoint him no matter what the situation. “But I don’t think I’ve had quite enough dessert. Want to see if we can fix that problem?”

Tom’s forehead wrinkled for a moment, as if he wanted to protest that metaphor, but then quickly smoothed again. He wasn’t quite as self-interested as the rest of their family, who could all be incredibly selfish bastards while still remaining committed to each other, but he still knew which side his bread was buttered. “You’ve always been a greedy bastard, I’ve been complaining about it for years.”

“Come on,” he said, and grinned lazily; noted, with not a little pleasure, the way that Tom’s big blue eyes seemed to be glued to his mouth. “Don’t pretend that you haven’t been a greedy bastard right alongside me.”

Tom looked like he wanted to protest that for half a second, but was luckily far too smart to do so. He sat up away from the headboard, slowly and deliberately as if he wasn’t quite sure how sensible what he was doing was. He gently removed their joined hands from his thigh, but only so he could better edge down the bed until they were level. He stared down at him for a long moment, hesitant and careful. And then he rolled over onto his stomach, propped himself up on his elbows and carefully leaned in.

He had kissed a fair few girls already, some of them even eagerly, and so he could immediately tell that they hadn’t quite got this right the first time. Their noses bumped together at first, driving them back instead of closer together, and even when their lips did connect it was slightly fumbling. He compensated by leaning in a little too hard, and Tom compensated by trying to be gentle and instead ending up almost falling out of the kiss. It was a bit of a mess all things considered, fumbling and nervous when usually he was able to have absolute confidence in his abilities.

They drew back eventually, and stared at each other. He realized, with a surge of fondness, that Tom’s traitorous blush was firmly back on his face. Like, as he always tended to, he was taking all the responsibility for it being a bit unrefined on his shoulders and preparing to beat himself around the head with it.

Tom noticed his amused look immediately, because of course he did, and gave him a slightly disgruntled glare in response. He was truly adorable, when he was even the slightest bit ruffled. “I’m aware that you’re probably used to better-”

“Eh,” he said cheerfully, and shifted even further up on his knees. It wasn’t that he was in a fully comfortable position, but somehow he felt comfortable here; in Tom’s familiar room, on Tom’s familiar carpet, with Tom blushing in such a familiar way in front of him. “We can work on it.”

And, this time not giving Tom even a moment to overthink it, he reached out and yanked him back in.

It was still awkward at first, as the two of them got used to each other, but he didn’t allow either of them to draw back this time. He just kept kissing Tom, harder and harder and more and more deliberate until he gave a faintly confused sounding moan and opened his mouth. He swept in without a moment of hesitation, tangled their tongues together and had to wait only a moment before Tom picked up on what was going on and started meeting him with equal enthusiasm. 

Once that boundary was passed, smashed through with glee like he’d smashed through every single other boundary in his life, others were quick to follow. Tom slid desperate hands into his hair, clutching at his curls like he’d been longing to do so for years. He responded by starting to actively fuck his tongue into Tom’s mouth instead of just twining it there, finding the exact places inside that would make his friend moan again and again. They attempted to sway closer and closer, only blocked by the presence of the bed between them.

That just wouldn’t do, he wanted all of this with a hunger that should’ve been shocking but that instead seemed only natural. He clambered up to his feet, Tom rising up to his knees so they didn’t have to part their mouths for even a single moment, and then climbed up onto the bed. They lapsed back to the pillows together, their mouths still joined and their bodies happily entwining. It felt all consuming, it felt like coming home after years in a parched desert.

And yet still, somehow, it wasn’t quite enough for him. He pressed Tom even more firmly back to the pillows, and when Tom only moaned encouragingly in response took it as permission to go even further. He slung one leg over Tom’s hips, and then shifted his entire body until he was lying on top of Tom on the bed. He’d been in a similar position before, but he didn’t think that he’d ever felt so close to another human being. It was shockingly intimate, wonderful in a way that he’d never expected but now kind of wanted all the time.

They were both properly into it now, as their embrace got more and more intense by the moment, and he honestly didn’t know how far it would go. Tom still had a death grip on his curls, and he was starting to firmly want to get a death grip on other things too. He slid one hand down between their pressed together bodies, desperately, found the button of Tom’s pants and fumbled with it for just a moment…

And then, just as Tom moaned encouragingly and gave an abortive thrust up against his hand, there was a knock at the door.

Tom bucked up beneath him, arousal transforming instantly into panic, and he startled backwards himself. The violence of his movement was such that he tumbled right off the bed, thudded into the floor - luckily the side not clearly visible from the door - with a pained whimper. Tom, who was the fastest thinking person that he knew, immediately took advantage of his liberty to grab one of the textbooks from his bedside table and hold it hastily over his lap. By the time that the door actually swung open to reveal their mother, they were far apart and with all obvious signs of their hard-ons thankfully covered.

“I know it’s your birthday, Santino, but you still have things to do tomorrow,” his mother, luckily the least observant member of his incredibly sharp eyed family, said sternly from the door. There was still a fond light in her eyes, though, as she looked over the two of them and perhaps deliberately chose to notice nothing amiss. “I expect you to be in your own room and your own bed in half an hour, or you will have no sympathy from me if you’re sleepy eyed the next morning.”

He was still panting, from the feeling of Tom’s body against his, but he was pretty sure he succeeded in hiding it. He’d been hiding things from his parents for years, after all, from his first smoke to the first time he’d kissed a girl. “Yes, mama.”

Their mother transferred her gaze to Tom, always the more obedient child, and gave him a slightly gentler smile. “That goes for you too, Tom. Stop letting Sonny drag you into bad ideas, you know you never enjoy it.”

“Yes, ma- ma’am,” Tom said instantly and obediently. Still, after all this time, too anxious to actually call her mother. He would’ve taken offence at that, if he didn’t know his best friend quite so well; he didn’t do it because he looked down on their family in any way, but rather because he looked up to it rather too highly and allowed terror to freeze his tongue.

Their mother looked briefly sad at that, obviously sharing the same thought process as him, but smoothed it away as she had become adept at smoothing away all negative emotions over the years. She gave them both a fond nod and a briefly stern look, and then turned on her heel and closed the door behind them with a final sounding click. She was gone, but he still knew that they had no hope of continuing as they had been; their mother was by far the more amiable parent, but she was just as adept at watching as their father in her own way.

The moment she was gone he still transferred his gaze back to Tom, determined to make the most of whatever limited time they had left. To his pleasure, he found Tom already staring at him in turn; that bright red blush still high on his cheeks, but an expression of surprising steadiness in his eyes.

“So,” he said, deliberately drawing the word out in an attempt at making Tom smile, and gave a long stretch. He was pleased, and not a little smug, when Tom’s eyes remained glued to the motion throughout.

Tom went up on his elbows again, to see him better. The workbook he’d been using to cover himself fell aside, sadly revealing a much reduced bulge, as he lifted a hand to press tentative fingers to his lips. He had liked everything they had done together, and that knowledge alone - even if their making out hadn’t been ball bustingly great - would’ve made him want to do it again. “So?”

He grinned his most charming grin, and deliberately lowered his eyelashes so he could look at Tom flirtatiously through them. He had never flirted with his best friend before, but he figured that now was the perfect time to try it out. “When do you want to go for dessert again?”

The spluttering laugh that Tom gave was something absolutely wonderful, something that made his heart flutter in his chest in a totally unexpected way. It wasn’t really a surprise when Tom leaned over the side of the bed again, got a hand in his collar and dragged him up into a brief, but still all-consuming, kiss.

\--

He was eighteen the first time he slept with Tom.

Adulthood, proper adulthood and not just the two of them playing, had come up on them far quicker than he had ever thought possible. One day they had been just kids, sharing a house and sneaking around like nothing really mattered. The next Tom, his best friend who had always been the smartest person he’d ever known, was confirming that he wanted to become a lawyer and getting sent to a fancy college and then moved into a fancy apartment.

Well, not that fancy an apartment but it was still better than somebody who didn’t have the backing of their family would’ve been able to get. It was about three rooms, but felt a lot smaller when all of them crammed in there to welcome Tom to adult life. Their mother and father sat on the shabby couch, and made approving noises about what a big step up in the world this was. Fredo looked around with barely hidden envy, knowing - even at fifteen - that he wasn’t favoured enough by their father to be handed freedom like this. Michael looked around with blase interest, knowing - at fourteen - that he was favoured enough that this was probably going to be his future. Connie, the baby of the family, simply busied herself with running around with various aunts and cousins - as many extended family members as they’d been able to pack into this tiny place - and getting away with everything short of murder.

He leant against the wall, near the front door, and simply watched Tom move around the room. Watched him talk to people, watched him smile, watched him take infrequent drags from the beer that’d been pressed into his hand at the beginning of the night. And he kept watching, even as everybody slowly departed - in a flurry of noise and activity - until it was only the two of them standing there.

“I agree with dad, y’know,” he said once the door had finally shut behind his mother, her displaying absolutely no concern at leaving the two of them alone together because it had been that way for over seven years now, and slowly set his own bottle of beer aside on one of the numerous tables Tom had been brought as a gift. “You’ve got a nice place here.”

Tom gave a modest smile, shoved his free hand in his pocket. At eighteen he was already quieter than he had been before, growing steadily more restrained in a way that befitted a future consigliere but that made him feel kind of itchy. “It’s not that nice. It’s a shoebox, and we both know it.”

“It’s better than my room at home, or your room at home for that matter,” he pointed out, and stepped closer. Tom allowed him to snag the half empty bottle of beer from his hand, and set it aside on yet another gifted table. The man, for he was a man now, may have been growing steadily more adult and proper by the day; but there was still a softness in his eyes, a softness that he revelled in, when he made him look just the slightest bit up to meet his gaze. “Besides, it’s got you in it. That makes it the nicest place around.”

Tom blushed almost on cue, that vivid full face blush that he seemed to be able to restrain around everybody else. Not around him, though, they were far too close for that now.

He stepped in even closer, he laid his hand on Tom’s waist. And, when Tom didn’t protest, he leaned in the rest of the way and pressed their mouths together. It was chaste for half a moment, and then Tom inevitably opened his mouth to him and he swept in with a sense of eagerness that he couldn’t quite deny. And then they were right back to making out, as they had hundreds of times since that day on his bed.

Kissing Tom had become a regular thing since his sixteenth birthday. Not an everyday thing, they were both far too busy for that what with both of them getting drawn deeper and deeper into the business of the family, but often enough that Tom was the steadiest partner that he’d ever had. It’d become almost a game, how often he could find the time to kiss Tom; deep and slow in either one of their bedrooms, secretive and filthy in either one of their cars, flicker quick when their mother had gone out of the room for just a moment. They’d never progressed quite as far as they had that first time, it was hard to find the privacy to do so in a house so full of people who constantly wanted to talk to him, but there was definitely a certain kind of intimacy there.

And now, that Tom had a little place all of his own, he thought it was about time that they did go further and increased all of that wonderful intimacy. He drew back from their kiss, amused that Tom chased automatically after his lips, and gave his best friend a teasing grin. “You know what other perk this place has?”

Tom, Tom who was usually so on top of absolutely fucking everything, had to blink several times before words returned to him. It was still a source of glee to him, and he suspected always would be, that he was the only one who could get Tom to fall apart so entirely. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

He leant in close again. He nuzzled up the side of Tom’s face, and when that produced a satisfying shudder lifted his head until his lips were just brushing up against the shell of Tom’s ear. “A nice, private _bed_.”

When he drew back Tom looked actively dazed again, this time not because he had to remember what words were but because the meaning of said words had actively seeped into him. It was an enchanting sight, to see his usually put together best friend in the world so discombobulated; he kind of wanted to see it all the time. “You sure?”

He kissed Tom again, for that, and grabbed his wrist as he did so. He guided Tom’s hand, knowing it was crude but seeing no better way to get his point across, between his legs. He grinned, as Tom’s fingers curled around the already half hard weight of his cock and Tom’s jaw went briefly slack. “Is Santino Corleone ever not sure?”

“Unless it’s over what unhealthy crap to stuff down his throat for dinner,” Tom murmured, already looking close to utterly undone, and accepted the joking slap against his shoulder as his due.

They stumbled for the bedroom, kissing each other all the way there. Somehow it felt even more consuming than all the times they’d done it before, and he was obsessed by it. It felt good, to finally get to have Tom’s hands in his hair and his tongue in his mouth without any fear of interruption. If he was honest with himself, and there was no reason not to be considering what he was doing, he had wanted this for a good long while.

Tom’s bedroom was even smaller than his front room, neat and tidy in that way that he tended to obsessively maintain when nobody else was there to mess it up. Tom paused in kissing him for a moment as he went to flick on the light, and then watched him closely as he took the narrow space in. “Again, I know it’s not as good as you’re used to-”

“Again, it has you and a bed,” he interrupted, pointedly, and grinned when Tom gave in and rolled his eyes at him. He stepped closer again, backing Tom against the flimsy wall, and leant in for another kiss. From there it was the easiest thing in the world to drop his hands, to get started on the buttons of Tom’s clothes.

They had both been forced to wear suits, their mother wanting them to look nice for an official housewarming party even if that house was a tiny apartment that hadn’t even been fully unpacked yet, but that made little difference to the rate at which they stripped. He could tell that Tom half wanted to go slower, half wanted to keep his clothes nice as if their father wouldn’t buy him a whole new set the moment he thought to ask, but he kept forcing them past that. First the jackets, then the shirts, then the trousers, then the underwear… Until they were both standing naked in the privacy of the room.

Once they were done they both, by mutual and silent agreement, drew back to look at each other properly. They’d seen each other naked a fair few times over the years, the side effect of living so closely together, but not when they were both technically adults and not in this context. Tom looked hot naked, which wasn’t that much of a surprise; he wasn’t particularly muscular or particularly big, but he had a certain wiry dignity that couldn’t help but draw the eye. He wanted to kiss every inch of that pale flesh, he wanted to touch all over and discover all the spots that would make Tom fall apart.

Judging by the way that Tom was looking at him, a decidedly dazed expression on his usually controlled face, his thoughts were tending much the same way. Which was a good thing, he wanted them both to be on the same page if they were finally going to do this. “Oh.”

He grinned, couldn’t quite restrain himself and wouldn’t have even if it was a possibility. He placed his hands on his hips, and downright preened under the focus of Tom’s gaze. He was used to being looked at, used to being appreciated in such a way, but this - being looked at by _Tom_ \- still felt special and new and he was determined to appreciate it. “Like what you see?”

“It really is as big as they said,” Tom said, his gaze distractedly down between his legs, and then realized what he’d said and flushed bright red again as he laughed. As ever, though, Tom knew the perfect way to retort and throw him off balance in return. He had only a few moments to laugh, and then before he could properly start to tease Tom slid down to his knees and shuffled eagerly between his legs.

He had been blown before, it was easier to convince the girls he went out with to do that than anything more in depth, but somehow it felt better with Tom doing it. Tom was obviously experienced, something he felt a brief and admittedly insane surge of jealousy over, and also obviously determined to use that experience to make him feel good. Tom sucked on the tip of him at first, slow and deliberate and so focused that he felt his knees buckle a little at just that brief bit of contact.

Tom saw that he was pleased and, with a smug flicker of his eyes upwards, pressed his advantage. He started to bob his head, slowly at first but soon with a greater degree of confidence and speed as he gave an encouraging moan. Pleasure started to build even higher within him, bubbling up in a most satisfactory way. He wove his hands into Tom’s hair, which was smoother and a bit thinner than his, and held on as hard as he could in a desperate attempt to pretend that he had any control over this.

He didn’t, and they both knew it. Tom sent him an amused look, at his attempt at macho posturing, and picked up his speed yet again. Before long he was bobbing on his cock in a proper rhythm, one seemingly designed to take him apart entirely. They had never done this together before, as much as both of them had dreamed of it, but Tom seemed to have developed mind reading capabilities somewhere along the way. He knew exactly how hard to suck, exactly how fast to bob, exactly how confidently to move to drive him out of his motherfucking mind.

It was all so good, incredibly good, _too_ good. He let out another desperate moan, and then tightened his hands in Tom’s hair again and yanked him back. Tom blinked up at him, confused and amused in equal measure, but he didn’t stop there; he used his grip to drag Tom back up to his feet, and then spun him against the wall for a deep kiss. The only balm, to how out of control he felt, was that Tom seemed just as undone as him.

With the both of them so undone, it didn’t take long before they mutually decided to take action on it. He stepped backwards, towards the bed, and Tom immediately saw what he was about and followed him. They clambered up onto the covers, the perfectly made covers because apparently Tom was going to be that square even without anybody around to nag him about it, and lapsed back to the pillows in another all consuming kiss. He rolled until he was straddling Tom again, a repeat of the position they’d been in on his sixteenth birthday, and then shifted down until he was kneeling between the man’s legs.

He hadn’t done this nearly as much as he had being blown, and had never done it with another guy, but the theory of it was simple enough for even somebody like him to grasp. He took ahold of his now fully hard cock, and guided it until it was resting against Tom’s entrance. He slowly started to push forward, already eager to see what that tight hole would feel like around him…

“You need to prepare me a bit first, you dick,” Tom interrupted him, with a breathless grumble, and swatted at his shoulders until he drew back just a little. Freed from his embrace, although not from his unimpressed glare, it was easy for Tom to wriggle over to the side and fetch a jar of what looked like petroleum jelly from yet another fucking table. “With your fingers, you see? Even an idiot like you should be able to figure it out.”

He swatted at Tom for that, but he had to admit that his irritation was more because he didn’t like not to know things than because of anything that Tom had done. He accepted the jar from Tom, and slicked his fingers up thoroughly. And then he carefully went down to his elbows, and slid one slippery finger up Tom’s thigh. He pressed against Tom’s hole for a moment, testing, and then very gently pushed the digit in up to the knuckle.

Tom groaned at that, encouragingly, and he rotated his finger until he felt the man start to loosen around him. He drew back just a little, until he could add some more of the jelly to a second finger, and pushed two in at once. He went slowly and carefully, far more careful than he’d ever been in any situation like this before. He worked his fingers, pushing and scissoring and appreciating the warm tightness around him, until Tom was gasping beneath him and bucking down on his hand.

And then, spurred on by yet another needy noise from Tom’s direction, he drew back entirely. He slicked up his own cock, underneath Tom’s eager eyes, and slid back into position. He pressed the head of his cock up against Tom’s hole for a long moment, allowing him to get used to it and maybe gathering his own courage along the way, and then slowly started to push in.

There was some resistance, but it was a lot less than the odyssey that he’d been expecting. Tom spread his legs and rocked down against him carefully, and at first his head and then inch after inch of him slid into that tight hole. Until he was fully buried within Tom, their bodies pressed together as they both panted and tried to gain their bearings.

The sensation was a lot, just as overwhelming as he’d dreamed about. Tom was tight and hot around him, and the little ripples of his muscles as he gasped for air sent sensation flaring all the way through him. Their eyes met for a long moment, just long enough that he could see that Tom was just as undone as him at getting what they’d both wanted for years, and then he took in a deep breath and decided that he might as well get on with it. He drew back just a little, and then rocked slowly forward into Tom’s glorious body.

He went slow at first, as slow as he could considering that he was eighteen years old and had his cock buried in his best friend’s ass. He punched his hips slowly and deliberately, getting used to the slightly different sensation around him, and for once tried to keep most of his attention on his partner’s reactions beneath him. Tom looked dazed again at first, but then steadily more absorbed in proceedings. It wasn’t long before he started to rock his hips slowly down onto his cock, until he at first lifted his legs on the bed and then lifted them from the bed entirely and wrapped them loosely around his hips.

They built up a slow rhythm together, working with each other as well as they ever had. It didn’t take him long to realize that Tom liked to be fucked with deep thrusts, not exactly roughly but also far from gently. Tom, in his turn, soon realized that he liked a hand in his hair and nails buried deeply in his back. They steadily discovered more and more of each other, an impromptu map of each other’s bodies that neither of them would ever be able to forget.

It soon became good, this ceaseless movement against each other, and then quickly moved to a level beyond that. It didn’t take long for him to become obsessed with Tom’s body, with the way that it moved so sweetly beneath him. Before long he found himself increasingly the tempo of his thrusts, Tom right alongside him, in an attempt to get more. Although he wasn’t really sure what he wanted more of: more of Tom, more of this pleasure, more of _them_ entwined so close that nobody would ever be able to part them.

He was usually fairly good at keeping up his stamina in situations like this. But with Tom beneath him, being such a good ride that he could focus on literally nothing else, he could already feel himself starting to unravel. He shoved Tom’s legs up higher, so he could get deeper inside him, and that only made the problem worse. He ran the hand that wasn’t propping him up on the bed all over Tom’s body, deliberately seeking out all the places that’d make him joyously squirm, and that only made the problem worse too. He kissed Tom again and again and again, mashing their lips together and tangling their tongues, and that only made the problem _worse_. It was like he just couldn’t control himself, not around Tom.

Their rhythm soon started to fall apart, slowly at first but then gathering speed like a stone rolling down a fucking mountain. Tom threw his head back against the pillow even as his thighs clenched around him, and groaned in a way that he felt right through him. He went down on first one elbow, and then - unfortunately having to remove his hand from Tom’s body - the other. They kissed for a while longer, and then became no longer capable of that and had to settle for simply resting forehead to forehead instead.

He had never been this close to another human being, had never - for all of his general joy in socialising - ever really wanted to. He pressed his forehead hard against Tom’s, and kept moving his hips as fast as he could even as his completion rushed up on him. It was a mercy that he wasn’t exactly capable of words in his current state, because if he had been he could only imagine that he would’ve said some of the soppiest shit possible and potentially fucked everything up between them. No, better to remain silent; just for now.

When he did come, it was another thing that he felt all the way through him. He jerked his hips hard into Tom’s willing body, for once forgetting any attempt at gentleness, and let out a desperate gasp as he collapsed down onto Tom’s chest. His entire world whited out for a moment, became something blissful and white instead of anything where actual constructive thought was possible. He came back to himself only enough to register when Tom came beneath him, with a jerk and a sob that was almost shout, but otherwise was happy to drift through his happy world of white.

Afterwards they panted together as they slowly came back to themselves. He knew he probably should’ve pulled out and away, left Tom to his own slow recovery process, but he didn’t feel inclined to somehow. Instead he only remained in place, his forehead pressed against Tom’s and Tom’s gasping breath the most wonderful sound that he’d ever heard in his ear.

“You know what?” He asked eventually when he’d got his breath back, when he was anywhere close to capable of speech again. In a moment, just a moment, he would reach for his cigarettes and offer Tom one and everything would go back to kind of normal; but for now, just for now, he was happy to linger for a little while longer.

“Mm?” Tom asked, his voice warm and almost sleepy. He was still gently clutching at his back, almost tentatively as if he was hoping that he wouldn’t notice. 

It wasn’t as if he _minded_ a bit of a cuddle, but he remained silent for fear that Tom would jerk violently away and go back to his usual composed self if he said even a word. Instead he drew back slowly, carefully making sure not to dislodge his cock from Tom’s ass or Tom’s hands from his back, and smiled warmly down at his best friend in the world. “This is the best apartment _ever_ , without question. And I am gonna be over here all the time.”

Tom stared up at him for a long moment, a complicated expression upon his face, and then grinned. When he arched up for a kiss, an ever so sweet kiss, it was just as all-consuming as before.

\--

He was twenty two the first time he told Tom he loved him.

Sandra was a nice girl. He didn’t love her, but she wasn’t hard on the eye and she cooked almost as well as his mother. So when his father made a subtle suggestion that maybe a wife would settle him down, and his mother immediately backed that up with several less than subtle comments about wondering when she’d finally get some grandchildren, he’d decided that he could do far worse and might as well bite the bullet with her. It wasn’t as if his marriage vows meant more than a piece of paper, after all; just because his parents had been happily tied to each other for going on twenty five years now didn’t mean that he had to be the perfect image of fidelity and adoration.

It ended up being an exciting day, although much like his old birthday parties he had the sense that it was actually set up for everybody but him. Sandra looked pretty in her big dress, his mother cried copiously at one of her babies finally getting hitched and even his father looked manfully proud of the whole shebang. He, at least, got some cake and to hang out amongst only happy people for once. He guessed it was an alright trade off.

Except Tom, one of his best men and the only one who actually mattered in his head where his parents weren’t going to criticise him for leaving his actual brothers out, was nowhere to be seen. Had been nowhere to be seen, since very shortly after the actual ceremony where he’d dipped Sandra in a probably too dramatic kiss.

It took a while for him to extract himself from obligations, but luckily at a wedding people were generally more focused on congratulating the bride than the groom. He searched through the house thoroughly, and when he spotted a flicker of light from outside - like a cigarette being subtly lit - he immediately jogged down the stairs and went out into one of the more shadowed portions of the garden. He was pleased, if not surprised, to find Tom standing there and chain smoking cigarettes like his life depended on it.

“You alright?” He asked amiably, when he was close enough that he was sure Tom wouldn’t run away at any intrusion, and reached out to steal a cigarette from him. They’d been doing this ever since they started smoking, bumming cigarettes off each other and occasionally even sharing them in an intimacy that he would’ve felt comfortable indulging in with nobody else.

“Yeah, just thinking,” Tom said around another puff of smoke, and cast him a sideways glance. Everybody had looked so _happy_ all day, it was almost a shock to see Tom looking thoughtful to the point of being morose. “You really went through with it all, then.”

“What?” He asked slightly taken aback, and had to think for a few moments to realize what Tom was getting at. Everybody had spoken of it so lightly and happily all day, it was a genuine shock to remember that a wedding was actually considered a solemn thing in a fair few circles. “The wedding?”

“Yes, Sonny, your wedding that you just spent all day attending,” Tom said, voice heavy with sarcasm… And then let out a heavy sigh. He looked, concerningly, almost defeated as he scrubbed a hand over his hair and stared out into the dark. “I just didn’t think that a wild spirit like you would ever get settled down, let alone so early.”

“Eh, needs must. You know how it is, pop says jump and us - his little minions - are supposed to ask how high,” he said, striving for light and flippant but probably ending up significantly closer to pleading than he meant to be. He could help it, suddenly he was filled with a desperate desire to make Tom understand how necessary this all was. “It’s not that bad a thing. Not like it actually means much, in the end.”

Tom gave him an incredulous look, one that made him shift awkwardly on his heels. “The holy sacrament of marriage, meant to bind two people together for eternity, doesn’t actually mean that much?”

“When you get down to it, it’s just a piece of paper,” he said, only avoiding a nervous stutter because he had never fucking stuttered in his life and wasn’t about to start now. Somehow the argument, the airtight argument he had thought just a few moments ago, didn’t sound anywhere near as good as it had in his head with Tom looking at him like that. “Look, me and Sandra have an arrangement that involves mutually low expectations. She gets to be supported by the most handsome man in New York, while I get to continue doing whatever I want while having a nice respectable wife at home. It makes sense.”

Tom just kept giving him that incredulous look, didn’t even bother to soften or hide it. “You really think it’s that simple?”

It was making him rethink things, which was the very last thing that he wanted. But, even worse, it was making him feel guilty for going to these lengths in the first place. “I think it is if I want it to be.”

Tom gave a disbelieving huff, but didn’t provide any words to actually back up his argument. So they remained silent for a while instead, both staring out into the darkness of the garden and stubbornly smoking. It had never felt this awkward with Tom before, they had always settled into a wordless synchronicity and he genuinely wasn’t sure - or genuinely didn’t want to be sure - what had changed.

“Look.” But Tom, mercifully, was just as uncomfortable with this as him and was a great deal less stubborn than him to boot. Eventually he sighed, and stubbed out his cigarette on the wall in an uncharacteristically careless gesture. “I’m sorry if I’m being a dick-”

“You’re not being a dick,” he interrupted, and honestly meant it. He didn’t like this strange situation, didn’t like the sudden disconnect that had yawned open between them, but for some reason he couldn’t shake the idea that it had been his fault. “Come on, you’ve known me for this long and you consider that dickish behaviour?”

“Fair point,” Tom said, and gave a brief and faintly resigned looking smirk as - on cue - he lit up another cigarette and started to puff at it “...I guess I was just worrying about whether this will change anything, between us. Foolishly, I guess, but somehow I just couldn’t help myself.”

He hesitated for a moment as he thought on their friendship, the absurd intimacy of it that he’d never been able to replicate with anybody else. The fact that they’d known each other for twelve years by this point. That they’d shared their first cigarette and first drink and first crush with each other, that they’d gone through puberty together, that they’d lived so closely entwined together that sometimes it was difficult to tell where one of them started and the other one finished.

But it was more than that, wasn’t it? Friendship was too small a word for all that laid between them. They were brothers, loyal to each other in a way that nobody else had ever managed to come close to. They were lovers, sharing their bodies and minds with each other on an incredibly frequent basis and never allowing anyone to come properly between. They were, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely everything to each other and had been since the day - if not the moment - they had met.

“It is a bit dumb,” he said, but softly. He had never been soft with anybody else even once in his life, not even when he had been convincing Sandra to marry him, but he thought that Tom deserved a tiny bit of softness now. “But I can understand why you’re worried, even if you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Tom nodded slowly at that, but didn’t exactly look soothed. His eyes were solemn, over the cigarette that he was hastily puffing at. “Don’t I?”

“Of course you fucking don’t,” he said, allowing a tiny bit of desperate exasperation to seep into his tone, and finally reached out. He clapped a hand on Tom’s shoulder, stroked him gently through the tuxedo that he’d been forced to wear all night. “There’s a reason that you’re my _actual_ best man, no matter what ma and pop may say. You’re my favourite person, my best friend, the only one I’d trust to have besides me no matter what. You’re everything to me, Tom, and don’t you ever forget it.”

Tom stared at him for a long moment more, wide eyed, and then obviously forced himself to glance away. He puffed on his cigarette for a heavy few moments, moments that seemed rather like nails down a chalkboard to him, before he finally replied. “Yeah, you mean everything to me too.”

“You’re the most important person in my life,” he said solemnly, feeling that it was important to be deliberate in this kind of situation, and clapped his hand on Tom’s shoulder again. He wished that he could do more, wished that he could take Tom into his arms and properly soothe him, but he knew full well that he had to settle for this now. “More important than pop, more important than ma, more important than Sandra or anybody else I know. And don’t you ever forget it.”

Tom hesitated for a long moment, and then very slowly nodded with his face still turned away so he couldn’t see his expression. He struggled with himself for a long moment, and then reluctantly forced himself to step back from the warmth of Tom’s body and stick his free hand in his pocket instead. They stood in the dark silently for a long few moments more, both puffling intensely on their cigarettes and regarding the gap between them tentatively.

Until Tom, who has always actually been far braver than him even if it never quite seems it, took in a deep breath and turned to look him in the eye again. “Sonny?”

Now he, absurdly, wanted to flinch away. But he didn’t; instead he stood there, and smoked his cigarette, and met Tom’s gaze as levelly as he could. It was the least he could do, on a day like today. “Yeah?”

Tom hesitated for a long moment, faltering. But seemed to draw strength from his steady gaze, and soon drew himself up and met his eyes levelly. There was only the slightest shake to his hand, only the briefest hesitation in his eye, to suggest that he was anything other than completely calm. “You know that I love you, right?”

He thought about the platonic definition of love for a long moment, about the kind of love that he had for the few friends that weren’t Tom. He thought about the love he had for his family, the kind of love he had for his mother and father and even his other siblings in between when they were annoying him. He thought about romantic love, the love he was supposed to have for Sandra and apparently - after today - absolutely nobody else.

He thought about all of that, and reached his conclusion. The love he had for Tom, Tom who was like nobody else in the whole wide world, was so much more than all of those things put together. “Yeah, of course. I love you too.”

Tom was a smart guy, had always been a smart guy, and immediately cottoned on to what he meant. He looked at first stunned, as if he had just stripped naked and danced the Fandango in front of him, but that lasted only a few moments. Soon, inevitably, he started to look incredibly pleased; his shoulders easing for the first time that day, as he finally accepted what had been the undeniable truth all along.

“Will you come back in soon?” He asked, tossing his cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out under his heel. He wasn’t generally good at reading the room, he relied on Tom for shit like that, but even he could tell that the atmosphere between them had grown a great deal lighter. “It’s fucking freezing out here, I feel like my balls are going to drop off.”

“That’s hardly my fault, I’m not the idiot who decided to have a November wedding,” Tom said haughtily, and for a moment sounded like the carefree boy he had once been instead of the professional consigliere he was on his way to becoming. He smoked for a moment more, thoughtfully, and then gave him a gentle smile that meant more than any words ever could. “I’ll be back inside in a bit, just let me finish my cigarette.”

“Good.” He worried a bit about Tom falling to brooding again, as he was so prone to without a strong hand to guide him, but he supposed he had to settle for the lightening of the atmosphere and leave it there. He desperately wanted to kiss Tom, to seal the pact they had made, but even he was aware of how inappropriate that would be at his own wedding. Instead he hesitated for a moment, and then stepped back and blew a kiss in Tom’s direction before turning on his heel and heading back to the party.

There was a warm feeling in his chest, and not just because of Tom’s briefly spluttered laugh, as he carefully snuck his way back in. It felt a great deal like hope.

\--

He was twenty five the first time he realized how jealous he could get over Tom.

They were cleaning up in the kitchen after that faintly disastrous birthday party for their father. Connie had initially been helping them, but her mind had been somewhere else and it had been incredibly easy to shoo her off to go flirt with her new beau. So it was only the two of them, and it wasn’t like they were immediately and desperately making out on one of the countertops or anything - they had a bit more self control than that, now - but they were standing a little closer than they would’ve been if anybody had been around to see.

“Lot of drama, eh?” He asked eventually, as he dried one of the forks that Tom had just washed. He had been expecting it to be a nice day, a casual celebration to honour his father before the big shebang that was inevitably coming, and the fact that Michael had casually ruined it left a sour feeling in his stomach.

“A fair bit, yeah,” Tom murmured softly, his hands deep in soapy water. They had fallen into their roles automatically, as he hated cleaning but could just about bring himself to handle a rag and Tom generally hated anything that was even the slightest bit out of place. “In hindsight, though, I’m not sure it was actually all that shocking.”

He had expected wordless support, Tom to immediately agree with him that it was all crazy and terrible and should be stopped right the fuck now, and while this wasn’t exactly a complete lack of backing he was still left blinking at the shock of it. “Please tell me that you mean my father getting a year older, or Carlo and Connie hitting it the fuck off, instead of Michael’s fucking insane decision to join the army.”

Tom scented danger in the air, looked up at him with a deliberately amiable expression. He always had been good at being soothing. “I’m not saying that it’s a good decision-”

“Good,” he said sharply, probably sharper than Tom deserved but he knew full well that his best friend could take it. “Because it really fucking _isn’t_.”

“-But it makes sense for Michael,” Tom finished, with a slightly stubborn note to his voice that he hadn’t quite expected. Tom was usually the most amiable of them by far, willing to go along with whatever insane scheme the rest of them proposed, but he was a Corleone after all. “You all wanted him to embrace the college life so badly, _I_ wanted him to embrace the college life so badly, but it’s been clear for years now that he’s wanted more than that. The kid has ambition, more than I’ve ever seen outside of your dad.”

He felt an absurd twist of jealousy at that, which he didn’t bother to push down even though it was ridiculous. It was just a bit galling, to realize that his youngest brother - little baby Michael, who he remembered as a toddler - was apparently a fucking adult now. “Or me, yeah?”

“Yeah, Sonny.” Tom gave him a mildly confused look for a few moments, and then eased it out into a fond smile. “Or you.”

The fact of the matter was, and he genuinely wasn’t sure how he felt about this all things considered, that he had started to grow a little uncomfortable around Michael lately. His little brother had grown into a man, almost in the blink of an eye, and at twenty one he was more mature than he could ever remember being. Little Michael just had a certain intensity to him now, a certain drive and - yeah, unfortunately - ambition that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He was still his little brother, he would always be that, but somewhere along the way he had become a threat.

“You would think that college would be enough for an ambitious boy like him,” he said, his voice sounding a little more resentful than he would’ve liked, and put the plate Tom handed him in the cupboard with rather more force than necessary. “And the life that pop has planned out for him afterwards, for that matter. Y’know, all those great plans of becoming a politician and going legit and all that jazz.”

“That was never going to be enough for Michael,” Tom pointed out calmly. Like he actually knew Michael, like he knew Michael better than him. “Come on, Sonny, you’ve seen him. Michael actually wants to _do_ things with his life, not sit around in some ivory tower and wait for things to come to him.”

He sniffed, not because he didn’t believe Tom but because he believed him a little too well. “One would think that being a politician involves actually doing things.”

“Have you met any actual politicians?” Tom asked wryly, with a twist of his mouth that his eyes still became glued to even after all this time. “Michael wants to fight for the things he loves, not sit behind a desk and send other people to do his battles for him. We’ve all spent so long trying to keep him from getting his hands dirty, trying to keep him and Connie as the babies of the family, but in the end I don’t think he’s ever wanted that at all.”

He sniffed again, and couldn’t deny the thick and bitter resentment in his stomach. Michael this and Michael that, Michael suddenly gaining his own two feet and making his own decisions like that was anything special. “I find it cute that you, or he, thinks that what he wants matters.”

“Oh, but it does,” Tom said mildly, and when he glanced over at his best friend there was a thoughtful little smile on his face that only served to get his back up further. “And not because it matters intrinsically, I think he’s rather too pragmatic to believe anything like that. I think it’s going to matter because he wants it to, and is going to move heaven and earth to make that the case.”

He didn’t glare at Tom, because it wasn’t like his best friend had actually done anything _wrong_ , but he couldn’t hold back a scowl. He wondered if Tom spoke as highly of him, when he wasn’t around to hear. “You sound almost like you admire him.”

Tom gave him another one of those mild smiles in response, still so very thoughtful. Michael probably liked it when he was thoughtful, Michael probably knew how the fuck to deal with it. “In a way I suppose I do.”

“Even after he fucked up pop’s birthday party?” He said, putting a bit of a warning into his tone.

“Eh, a bit,” Tom said calmly, and lifted his shoulders in a shrug as he stared. Tom was obviously in a good mood tonight, a good enough mood to be stubborn, and while he would’ve usually loved that at present moment he just felt uncomfortable all over again. “Besides, don’t pretend that all of you don’t love the drama. Especially you, Sonny, I _know_ you.”

And the thing was, he wasn’t usually wrong. He did usually love a good bit of drama, and to be perfectly fair it wasn’t like Michael was the first sibling to totally ruin a family affair with an ill-timed confession. Fredo, for instance, seemed to totally wreck one at least every other year.

It was just… He loved Michael, of course he did, but he was starting to feel decidedly uncomfortable about the role he was starting to take in the family. His brother had always been the baby, as the youngest boy was prone to be, but as he’d grown more and more into adulthood he had become the apple of his father’s eye and his mother’s eye and basically every other eye that saw him. It just rankled a bit, that was all.

What rankled even more, though, was that Michael had also become the apple of Tom’s eye somewhere along the way. Had become not just the kid brother, barely paid attention to while Tom’s attention was entirely fixed on him, but a player in his own right who was deserving of receiving his own attention. Every time Tom obviously thought about Michael the hairs on the back of his neck rose, every time he talked about Michael his back went up, every time he _smiled_ about Michael in that private way he’d reserved only for him before something bitter and acidic twisted in his chest.

The fact of the matter was, and he felt decidedly shitty about admitting this, that somewhere in the past few years he had become jealous of Michael and the hold he had on Tom. And he genuinely wasn’t sure what to do about that, but he knew that he didn’t like it one bit.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you look that constipated for a while,” Tom said, peering at him with mild concern. At least he still paid a little more attention to him, he wasn’t sure how long that was going to last but it was most definitely something. “Not used to your ma’s cooking, after just a few years of having a wife do it for you?”

“Sandra still cooks better than you can, dick,” he said mildly, ignoring the briefly complex expression that crossed Tom’s face at the jibe, and reached out to gently punch his best friend’s arm. “Come on, enough jabbering. Let’s get through the rest of this quickly, and then we can blow this joint.”

Tom recovered from whatever had been bugging him quickly, sent him an amused sideways glance from underneath his eyelashes. “Speaking of loyalty to your poor father…”

“Eh, I’ve been loyal enough tonight,” he said cheerily, and kept his hand on Tom’s arm even after he’d smacked him. He transformed the rough brotherly bump into a deliberate caress, safe in the knowledge that nobody else was around to see. “Now I want to see how loyal I can be to you in the backseat of my car.”

Tom flushed at that, not as violently as he once had but still obviously enough that it was a joy to see, and kept casting him a glance from underneath his eyelashes. He looked flirtatious, and his heart soared with the knowledge that at least Michael had never seen that side of him. “I’m not even sure that come on makes any sense, Sonny.”

He grinned, unrepentant and eager. “Do you even mind?”

“Mm,” Tom said, which was answer enough, and subtly leaned into the press of his hand. They finished the washing up quickly, both still as eager for each other as they ever were.

\--

He was twenty eight when they had their first fight.

It had, all things considered and weighed, been the worst month of his fucking life. His father, the man who had been the only thing keeping New York together for years, had been shot. And then, because he had survived, people had kept coming after him and straying onto their territory. And _then_ , on top of all that, Michael - his little brother, now twenty four and nowhere near so little - had decided to take action and convinced them into an assassination plan that was ballsy at best and downright suicidal at worst. It’d all been so much drama and stress and pure chaos, and all said and done he’d been going for about forty hours straight and wasn’t sure of when he’d next be allowed to drop.

Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that he felt a surge of intense irritation when the first words out of Tom’s mouth - after the most cursory greeting ever, and before he even got a fucking kiss - were to tell him that Michael had gotten to Sicily safely earlier that morning.

“Well that is good news,” he said sharply in response, stepping back from Tom and sulkily throwing himself into a chair instead. He had just wanted a bit of a distraction, would’ve settled for that distraction just being a hug or something equally innocuous, but apparently he didn’t even fucking get that. “The best news that I’ve had all fucking day, or month, or possibly even year.”

Tom knew him better than anybody ever had or ever would, and so noticed the note of danger immediately. He didn’t immediately hurry to apologise or make everything better, though, he just heaved a sigh and briefly closed his eyes. “Sonny-”

“No, scratch that, this is the best thing that has happened to me in my entire fucking _life_.” He was being a dick, he knew, being completely fucking petty to a guy who had done nothing wrong and deserved only the highest of praise. But he couldn’t help it, he was exhausted and that old jealousy - that he’d been dealing with in fits and starts for three years now - was hard upon him. “As long as saint fucking Michael is safe everything else must be fine and dandy, am I right?”

Tom had been awake for even longer than him. Only by about two or three hours or so, judging by the last time they’d seen each other, but they were still both at the point where every single minute sent them hurtling closer to insanity. He was usually a master at keeping his expression perfectly neutral, flat enough that nobody could possibly find fault or read anything into it, but at that little bit of provocation his entire face twisted just briefly.

Usually he would’ve let it go, would’ve pretended not to notice because he was eternally willing to indulge Tom and only Tom, but today he was tired and angry and downright spoiling for a fight. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Tom said mildly, obviously knowing that mildness - that a deliberate attempt to soothe him, when he was already riled up - was the way to piss him off even more than he already had been.

“You didn’t need to,” he snapped, and leant forward in his chair. He had been annoyed at Tom a fair few times before, but those had just been brief clouds that vanished within a day or less. Now he was brutally, passionately _pissed off_ at that mutinous look in Tom’s eyes and he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that besides going on the attack. “ _What_?”

“Do you really want to be spending your time sniping at your little brother, who isn’t even here, when you could be doing so many more important things?” Tom said very deliberately, and it was the first actual criticism - not a little petty thing, not two boys squabbling with each other while still having love in their hearts - that he’d heard from his best friend’s lips. “Jesus, Sonny, your father is still on death’s door as we speak.”

It was true, and that - in his sleepless state - just made him all the angrier. “So, what, you’re accusing me of being irresponsible now? Accusing me of not seeing the big picture, like a big fucking dummy without enough brain power to run this joint?”

Tom, at least, looked ruffled at that. He shouldn’t have been quite so pleased, but he felt viciously smug at the sight. “I’m not saying that!”

He glared, not bothering to hold back or hide how pissed off he was. “But you’re thinking it!”

“Well-” he was expecting a retreat, he was expecting Tom to be his usual reasonable self and try to diffuse the situation. Instead Tom, who was even tireder and just as stressed as him, drew himself up after a moment of hesitation and sent him a downright venomous glare in return. “Maybe I am, a bit. You’re being pretty damn irresponsible at the moment, after all!”

Never, in seventeen years of knowing each other, had Tom spoken to him with such genuine anger in his tone. He blinked for a moment, stunned, and then sat sulkily back in his chair and crossed his arms like a child having a tantrum. “Great, even the guy who is supposed to be my most loyal lieutenant thinks that I’m a fuck up.”

Tom simply looked exasperated. Which was, again, not exactly the heartfelt apology he had been hoping for. “Sonny, I didn’t say-”

“Again, it’s what you’re thinking that matters,” he snapped, and sat up in his chair to better give Tom a filthy glare. He felt tired, and upset, and insecure in a way that he never had before and hated with all of his fucking heart. “I bet you wish somebody else was in charge, I bet you wish somebody smarter was hanging around and actually able to fix all of this mess.”

“You’re the best person for the job at the moment,” Tom said, backing down just a little. Except not really, because there was still this horrible look of defiance in his eyes that made nausea churn in his stomach. “But, if you’re going to push me, of _course_ I wish that your dad hadn’t been shot and left for dead, and of course I wish that he was here to take care of all this right now!”

“Or maybe somebody just like him?” He asked sourly, not really wanting to press but feeling driven to it by some mixture of jealousy and tiredness. “Somebody better than him, and better than me, and better than practically every fucking person who had ever lived. The _sainted_ Michael, for instance.”

“What is wrong with you tonight?” Tom asked, looking genuinely baffled for a moment before the same old bitter rage as before slid angrily over his face and left him looking like a completely different person. “Are you actually jealous of _Michael_ , who is currently hiding away in Sicily?”

“No!” He said, and knew that he sounded far too defensive the moment after he’d said it. Tom would notice, Tom always noticed any slip ups that he made, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care too much about that in the middle of their sudden and violent fight. “I just find it annoying that he’s getting all the credit for keeping this family together, even by you who should know better, when it’s me who’s-”

“You’re actually fucking jealous of Michael,” Tom interrupted him for possibly the first time in a decade, his tone low and lethal.

He had never heard Tom sound like that, not in seventeen years of knowing him or thirteen years of flirting with him or twelve years of kissing him every chance he got. He sat back a little in his chair, more uncertain than he’d ever been, and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do with a Tom who was looking at him like he wanted nothing more than to put a fist in his face and leave him to rot.

“Look,” he started, and yet again knew that he’d betrayed far too much when his voice emerged slightly shaky instead of strident and deliberate. “I didn’t _say_ -”

“It’s not what you say that matters, Sonny, it’s what you fucking _think_!” Tom snapped, with just enough venom that he was left forcibly reflecting on how he’d never really heard the man swear with such brutal deliberation before. Tom, ever since their teenage years, had generally been polite and soft spoken but all bets were off now. “You have the fucking front to be jealous when you’re the man who married another person first? When you’re the one who fucks practically every girl you see? When you’re the one who would get off scot free if what we do in the dark was discovered, while I would be cast out into the cold within moments?”

He had finally pushed Tom too far, he realized just a little too late. He held up his hands defensively, tried to work his mouth around soothing words even though his mind was currently full of helpless and startled buzzing.

“When you give me fucking _nothing_ , and expect me to act like you’ve given me the whole fucking world somehow contained in your dick?” Tom ignored his defensive hands, Tom ignored any attempt to placate him at all and instead just continued to glare at him in that terribly hurt way. “You know what, Sonny, fuck _you_. Maybe I wish Michael was here instead of you after all!”

He glared at that, forgetting all and any attempts to calm his best friend down, and sat forward in his chair to jab a brutal finger in Tom’s direction. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?”

“Fucking _you_!” Tom shouted at him, practically a scream, and stepped right up close with his hands balled and tears - actual fucking tears, he had actually brought his Tom to the point of actual fucking tears - standing out hard and painful in his eyes. “Which, I guess, all things considered, is actually the same thing wrong with you yourself!”

They stared at each other for a long moment in the aftermath, both panting and shaking. He should’ve been furious, he thought he had been furious up until about five seconds ago, but instead there was a heavy feeling in his chest that threatened to split him all the way open. He would’ve said, up until this exact moment, that he didn’t particularly care if he upset another person because that was entirely their business to deal with. But he cared that he’d upset Tom, he’d always cared when he’d upset Tom.

That realization robbed the last of his petty rage from him, and finally got him moving. He stood up from his chair, slowly and deliberately so as not to startle, and took a slow step forward towards Tom. When Tom didn’t immediately yank away from him, even though he looked like he wanted to, he stepped right in and wrapped his arms right around the man; not as a friend, but as a lover. It took a long moment, but eventually Tom made a desperate sound and melted into him. They clutched each other like that for a long few moments, the rest of the world fading away as they held on.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually, deliberately shoving away a twitch of macho disgust at such vulnerable words.

“No,” Tom said into his shoulder, still desperately holding onto him like he needed a life raft in the middle of the storm. It had probably, on reflection, been the worst fucking month ever for the both of them. “I’m the one who should be-”

“Shut up,” he said, gently, and lifted Tom’s head with careful hands. He kissed his best friend at first on the forehead, and then on the tip of his nose, and then finally on his mouth. By the time he was done Tom was practically melting against him, swaying on his heels at the lack of sleep. “I… I didn’t know that you felt like that.”

“It didn’t really seem important to say,” Tom said quietly, and then sighed as he scowled at him. At the very least their inability to hide from each other went both ways, even if Tom was utterly unreadable when it came to anybody else he would always have a chink open for him. “I mean, it is _important_. But I know that you’re not going to change, not for me. And I told myself that I was happy, that I am happy, with just having you in whatever way I can.”

“Are you?” He asked, genuinely not sure how to feel about that. He wasn’t sure if he could change, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to change, he wasn’t sure what he could possibly offer Tom after all this time pretending that they were both perfectly happy with what they had.

“Generally, yes,” Tom said, and if there was still a little wistfulness in his eyes it wasn’t enough to comment on. Not now, not when they had finally found some level of peace with each other again. “I didn’t know that you felt that way either.”

“Yeah, well, it also didn’t seem that important to say,” he said, and made a face. He had always thought that Tom could read his mind, had based his entire life around that very simple premise, and he genuinely wasn’t sure what to do with the knowledge that it wasn’t entirely true. “I love Mikey, you know I do, but sometimes it gets tiring when you try so fucking hard and the golden boy is still never going to be you.”

Tom gave a reluctant little smile, which felt good but was probably far more than he deserved. “I can understand that.”

He gave a wry smile in response, leaned in again until he could press their foreheads back together. Entwined like this, it was almost like they were eighteen again - just on the cusp of being forced into adulthood - and nothing in the world had ever gone wrong for either of them. “Probably better than I can myself, to be honest.”

Tom didn’t confirm that, but he also didn’t exactly deny it. They stood in their intimate embrace for a long few moments more, still ever so close and neither particularly inclined to put any distance between them. Eventually Tom gave him a small, shaky smile and he returned it as best they could. They both knew that they were running on fumes.

“It’s been a messed up few weeks,” he broke the silence eventually, but only moved far enough back to separate their foreheads and literally no other part of them.

It was the understatement of the decade, possibly the century, and they both knew it. Tom also didn’t exactly pull back, but he did give him a look which said he knew exactly how full of bullshit he was. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“But we still have each other, and I still love you more than anybody else,” he said firmly, and tightened his arms around Tom’s body. Today, these past few days, had shattered the both of them and left only sharp pieces behind. But perhaps those sharp pieces had become intermingled, bringing them closer than ever, and perhaps them shattering didn’t have to mean them falling apart entirely. “That has to count for something, right?”

“Yeah,” Tom said, and stared at him with soft eyes that said a thousand things in silence. “It definitely counts for something.”

He smiled again, allowing himself to be weary this time, and finally unwound his arms from around Tom’s shoulders. He didn’t let go of his best friend entirely, though, instead reached down and snagged his hand before he could even try to pull away from him. Binding the two of them together again, holding on no matter what. “Come to bed?”

“Always,” Tom said softly, and followed him just as loyally as he ever did.

\--

He was thirty one the first time he admitted that they were in an actual relationship, the only one he wanted to be in for the rest of his life.

He woke up to every single part of him aching, a consistent throb of pain throughout his entire body from a gentle twinge in his toe to full on stabbing agony in his stomach. He couldn’t remember all that much after leaving his apartment, with a yelled word to the wide eyed Sandra, but whatever had happened to him had obviously been pretty fucking hardcore. He had experienced broken bones less awful than this.

He had never been one to bear pain lightly, be it mental pain or apparently getting run over by a truck multiple times. He shifted a little in the bed he was lying in, and when that only produced a sharp increase in the agony let out a loud yelp designed to draw help - even if that help was just a sympathetic ear - into his presence.

“Jesus Christ!” It had the required effect. Tom, because of _course_ he had known that it would be Tom watching over him like a guardian angel, startled up from the chair by his bed. His best friend had obviously been half asleep, had just as obviously been sitting there and watching him for a while, but he got back to consciousness quickly as he leaned over the best and groped for his hand. “Sonny! Sonny, can you hear me?”

“Of course I fucking can, since you’re basically yelling in my fucking ear,” he grumbled, and was pleased to realize that talking only led to a minor increase in the agony. Great, he could natter people’s ears off as usual from the comfort of his back. “What…?”

“You got shot,” Tom said, immediately knowing what he was getting at, as he wound their fingers together. Once they were holding hands Tom, who looked like he hadn’t slept for even longer than he’d managed after their dad got shot, looked utterly disinclined to let him go; as if he feared that he’d just blow away on the breeze if he didn’t cling to him like a limpet. “Multiple times.”

He scowled, but tentatively tried to squeeze Tom’s hand back. “How many times is multiple?”

“Above five, not sure how many over that. To be honest I stopped listening after the doctors said you were a medical miracle and should possibly be studied for the good of science,” Tom leant over him even further, smoothed his hair back from where it was flopping over his forehead with a gentle hand. For once, it felt good to be treated with kid gloves. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” he said, which was probably the new understatement of the century. And then, as a little more of his memory reluctantly returned: “How’s Connie?”

“She’s safe,” Tom said immediately, knowing his priorities instinctively. They both loved their little sister, and they were both furious - had discussed the matter many times - about what that bastard Carlo was doing to her. “She stayed briefly with o- your mother when she heard you’d been shot, but… Sonny, I’m sorry, I think she’s going to go back to him any day now.”

He pursed his lips, tentatively shifted himself a little higher on the pillows. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything himself for a good long while, he could tell that already, but there were certain ways around that. “We have to do something about that. Something official, no matter what pop says.”

A pleased light lit in Tom’s eyes, and not just because he was alive and well and currently attempting to bark out orders. “Finally?”

“Finally,” he said firmly, which was a little more effort than he was comfortable with - considering that he currently felt like he had at least one punctured lung - but seemed well worth it at present moment. “One point before we get started, though?”

“Oh?” The pleased light left Tom’s eyes, and he drew himself up as if expecting a matter of business to come barreling in at any moment. Suddenly he was the family consillegiere, professional and on point, instead of his best friend and brother and the man that he loved beyond all reason.

“She’s _our_ mother, not just mine,” he said deliberately, no longer content with allowing that to happen. His mind was still whirling, still desperately trying to absorb all the shit that had apparently gone down, but for the first time in what felt like years he knew exactly what he wanted with absolute clarity. “You’re a part of this family, Tom, just as much as me or Connie or anybody else.”

Tom obviously hadn’t been expecting that. Probably ever, but certainly not when he was lying almost on his deathbed. His best friend blinked, hard, and then stared at him as uncertainly as if he’d just announced his intention to go for the Nobel peace prize.

“You don’t believe me?” he asked, and held on to Tom’s hand all the tighter. Like he was ever going to pull away, like they were ever going to leave each other alone for even a second.

“No- ...No,” Tom said, and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. It was the first time, at least within his hearing, that his best friend had ever voiced the big insecurity sitting at the heart of him and he felt something loosen in his chest at the confession. “Frankly, ever since you took me in I just haven’t felt worthy of standing besides all of you.”

“You’re the most worthy brother I have,” he said, and meant it with his whole heart. “The most worthy member of this entire family, in my eyes. Better than Fredo, better than Connie, better than ma, better than Saint Michael, better than pops, better even than me. Better than _everybody_.”

“High praise from the most conceited man I know,” Tom said dryly, but when he looked at him there was a terribly raw expression on his face. He refused to look away from it, refused to let Tom hide, because suddenly he was determined to see every single inch of the man and accept him for who he was. “Sonny… You really consider me a brother?”

He gave Tom a pointed look, clenched his hand when he tried to shift away. “Is the sky blue?”

“At the moment it’s black, you’ve been out a good while,” Tom said, and hesitated for a long moment. He had the look of a man who wanted to turn on his heel and run far away, but he knew full well that Tom would never do such a thing while he was still lying in his sickbed. “Do brothers really do what the two of us do when we’re alone?”

He sat up in bed, incensed. Winced the next moment, though thankfully managed to bite back a cry of violent pain, as his wounds took the opportunity to remind him that they were most definitely there. “Have you really been feeling lesser because of _that_?”

“No,” Tom said, and caught him with a brief expression of panic. He unwound their hands from wrapping around each other, but it was only so he could gently take his shoulders and guide him back to the pillows; he even remained leaning over him afterwards, clutching his shoulders as he looked down at him. “I don’t know, it’s all mixed up in my head. Sometimes I feel like your brother, sometimes I feel like your lover, sometimes I feel like I’m nothing to you at all. Sometimes I feel like the prodigal son of the Corleone family, sometimes I feel like I could disappear and nobody would notice that I was missing. Sometimes I feel _everything_ , and… And I don’t know what I should do about that.”

“I see,” he said, and reached out to grab Tom’s wrists - admittedly with some effort - the moment he tried to pull away.

Tom gave him a look, a look that was about five seconds away from developing into an attempt to mother hen him, but didn’t attempt to pull back. It seemed like he needed the closeness too. “You do?”

“You’re not the only one who has a lot of complicated emotions towards this family,” he said, deliberately baring himself because Tom deserved the whole world and the very least he could offer him was this little corner. “Or towards our relationship, for that matter.”

“Oh,” Tom said, and stared at him. He had never, he realized, referred to what they did together as a relationship before. Perhaps he should’ve been panicked, should’ve felt the familiar urge to do some macho posturing and drive any attempt at emotion away, but he wasn’t; instead he just felt a wonderful air of certainty, like coming home. “That’s… Uh, that’s a lot.”

“Is it?” He asked.

“More than a lot.” Tom remained silent for a long few moments, considering that, and then gave him a slightly desperate look. Tom wasn’t a coward, had never been one despite his fondness for words over guns, but maybe he was just as reluctant to face his emotions as him in his own way. “Uh, I feel like I’m distracting you from the main issue here. Do you want me to get your wife? Or maybe Connie, or even your mother?”

“ _Our_ mother, Tom. And no, no I don’t. The most important person to me is already right here and right now.” He gave Tom a pointed look, continued to hold onto his wrists in a gentle but firm grip. He could definitely understand being reluctant to face up to emotions, but he didn’t feel like allowing it anymore. “The thing about those complicated emotions is that they’re bullshit. If I’m a part of this family, which I am, then you most definitely are. You are the heart and soul of this entire operation, the one person who keeps us going through thick and thin. Without you, not without me or without Michael or without anybody else, we would’ve all crumbled to dust over these past few years. Without you, _I_ would’ve crumbled to dust over these past few years. You’re everything, Tom, and don’t you ever forget it.”

Tom’s throat worked, Tom looked at him with wide eyes as if he’d just literally risen from the dead instead of risen from getting filled with lead. “I’m sure I’m not.”

“ _Tom_.”

“I’m sure that should be somebody different,” Tom continued stubbornly, although still didn’t try particularly hard to yank away. “Ma - _your_ ma - for instance. Or your father. Or maybe even your wife, Sandra is a good girl even if-”

“No, Tom, it’s _you_ ,” he repeated, determinedly, and dragged Tom in until they were practically nose to nose. It took some effort, but it was entirely worth it to get Tom’s baby blues right in front of him again. “ _You’re_ the most important person to me. More important than any mother, or father, or most definitely wife.”

Tom swallowed, but - and this was truly a miracle - there was a slowly dawning realization flooding over his face that was beautiful to see. “Sonny… Did you just call me your Maîtresse-en-titre?”

It was confusing, but a promising kind of confusing. He grinned, carefree. “Is that French?”

“It was a position in the French court,” Tom explained, as ever unable to resist any kind of dorky lecture even if the situation was far too serious for it. “Obviously before the revolution removed all the kings. In English, it roughly translates as-”

“I don’t care,” he said flippantly, and arched up just a little - biting back a groan of pain as he did so - until he could place a pointed kiss on Tom’s nose. “I’m Italian.”

“ _Sonny_ ,” Tom scolded. But then, impossibly, started to give a disbelieving grin of his own. Like everything was going to be alright, like even one of them getting shot almost to death couldn’t stop them.

“I love you,” he said deliberately, pressing his advantage, and watched Tom’s grin fade to be replaced by an expression of infinite softness and infinite possibility. “As a friend, as a brother, as a lover, as all of those things combined and so much more besides. You are the most important person in the world to me, and have been ever since you wandered into my life at eleven years old. And I am so, so sorry if I ever made you feel like anything else.”

“You’re the most important person in the world to me too,” Tom said softly, so softly that he had to absolutely mean it. And watched him for a moment more with that awestruck expression, before his entire face crumpled and his entire body cleaved towards him. “I am _so_ glad that you’re not dead.”

He shifted aside on the bed, again with an amount of effort that he was really going to have to get used to, and Tom laid aside all dignity and clambered in with him. He wrapped an arm around Tom’s shoulders, forcing through the pain with a grimace, and Tom wrapped an arm around his waist and buried his face in his collarbone. They curled together for a long few moments like that in silence, closer than they’d ever been and feeling right with the world for the first time in years.

“I love you,” he said to the top of Tom’s head, and dropped a tender kiss there just to punctuate his point.

“I know,” Tom said, and tilted his head back to gently brush their lips together. “I love you too.”

“And I would do anything to prove it,” he said firmly, only their lips had parted, and drew back just far enough - again with effort, and he really hoped the rest of his fucking life wasn’t like this - until he could look Tom deliberately in the end. “Like, performing mythological tasks level kind of shit.”

“You’d fight a hydra for me, would you?” Tom asked teasingly, and then downright snorted a laugh at the expression that was probably on his face. “I _knew_ you didn’t know anything about mythology, you’ve never been able to read for more than five minutes at a time.”

“I said mythological task _level_ , I don’t need to have any actual knowledge of what actual mythological tasks involved,” he said haughtily, largely so he could make Tom - his Tom, who always looked so serious around everybody but him - grin. “I would leave my wife for you. I would fight our entire family for you. I would fight the entire fucking world for you. I would kiss you out in public, and let the whole world know that you were mine and I was yours if you wanted.”

“Sonny!” Tom spluttered, and pulled back from him a little more as his grin faded into an incredulous look. “You don’t mean that. You do that, and you’ll destroy your entire life.”

“Nothing could do that,” he said, meaning it entirely, and tugged gently at Tom’s back until he gave in and gently flopped back down at his side. “Not while you’re with me. Nothing else really matters, not while that’s true.”

“Huh,” Tom said, and his voice was still slightly incredulous but with a steadily dawning hope behind it that he absolutely loved to see. “I don’t want any of that.”

“Tell me what you do want, then,” he suggested, and began to pepper kisses over Tom’s forehead until his best friend - his everything - grumbled fondly and deliberately batted him away. “I’ll give you anything, Tom, anything in the world that you want. You have to know that by now, right?”

“...I want you to love me and me to love you, as simple as that,” Tom said deliberately, after a silence so long that he thought they’d taken several steps back and Tom wasn’t actually going to answer him. “And I want to make New York, and this entire country, remember just how much they should fear the Corleone name. Every single one of us, from your father to me.”

He grinned, and knew in one beautiful moment that absolutely everything was going to be alright. “That, my love, we can _do_.”

They grinned at each other for a long moment, both triumphant, and then he butted their foreheads affectionately together again. When he leant in for another kiss, Tom not only didn’t resist but tilted his head eagerly up to press their lips together. Leaving the two of them entwined, just as they always should be.

How could they ever fail, after all, when they had each other?


End file.
